In Which Tintin Handles Jealousy Like A Champion
by DoubleDecks
Summary: Haddock/Tintin SLASH - If you can't beat fond memories, the only logical conclusion is to join them, of course.


**IN WHICH TINTIN HANDLES RETROACTIVE JEALOUSY LIKE A CHAMPION  
**

* * *

"What were the men like, Captain? In the service?"

Captain Haddock, having spent several minutes attempting to thread a string through a model mast with his stubby and inconvenient fingers, looked up at his companion and the mast did a lazy twirl in the air before falling over altogether.

"Beg your pardon?"

"In the Navy. What were the men like?"

The Captain paused for a second, able to consider many things because he had not yet opened his bottle of shipbuilding evening Chardonnay – which had once been a bottle of shipbuilding evening whiskey, but ever since his better half had moved into Moulinsart measures had been taken to reduce an unhealthy necessity to a more dignified, less destructive indulgence. The Captain had to admit he did prefer the warm glow, steadier hand, and more impressive results that followed a bottle of quality wine to…well, falling asleep in his chair and waking up with a spinning head to a pile of unidentifiable debris.

Tintin was still looking expectantly at him from where he was seated in the armchair opposite, hands clasped on his lap. His eyes were unwavering, and in that one second, the Captain was indeed able to consider many things.

He considered, for one, that the question had followed several minutes of complete silence and had no precursor.

He considered, secondly, the delivery of the question – it completely lacked the lad's usual curious nature and sounded more like an interrogation inquiry, the tone of which was balanced perfectly on the line between "How long have you known him?" and a calm "Where have you hidden the body?"

Tintin was very good at perching himself on that line. His face remained blank, brows only slightly raised. His eyes didn't sparkle with eagerness. His mouth remained a straight, thin line. There was no trace of anything else on his visage.

Captain Archibald Haddock was on thin ice.

He resolved to stop fiddling with the model, responding, as if he were preparing to tell the boy any other story –

"Brave souls, they were…"

He'd expected another question at just about this point, but Tintin remained uncharacteristically quiet and he had to struggle to find a continuation for such an ambitious introduction.

"Ah, er, would you like some of this?" he picked up the bottle of waiting Chardonnay, which was still cool to the touch from the icebox.

"Captain," Tintin's expression relaxed into one of gentle, amused reprimand. "You know I don't drink."

"Oh, that's right, of course; forgive-"

"…but I suppose a little bit couldn't hurt."

The Captain was surprised by this, and immediately wanted to kick himself for not bringing a second glass up with him on the _one night Tintin had obliged, ever_. Surely it wasn't as if he'd known this would happen, but it was still rotten luck. The_ most_ rotten luck.

"That so?" he laughed. "Well, I'll just go and get you a glass," he rose to leave, hoping that the pomp and circumstance of it all wouldn't make the reporter change his mind.

His fears were confirmed. "Oh," Tintin said, "don't worry about it, then."

Haddock wanted to kick himself twice.

"You sure?"

"Yes, it's quite alright." Tintin reached for the bottle and corkscrew, and what little hope the Captain had as he poured out a single glass was dashed when the boy handed it to him.

"Tell me about the service. About your crewmates."

"Well, er," Haddock followed suit and lowered himself into his leather chair, taking an awkward sip and feeling its warmth encapsulate his head far sooner than it usually did. The young man had seemingly turned him into quite the lightweight just by existing, and now he was asking him difficult questions.

"I'm supposing you don't want to hear about the Diderot, nothing much went on there…now the _Fourdre_-"

"You were stationed on the Diderot before the war, right?"

"…yes…" Haddock wondered how Tintin would know but figured it was common knowledge to anyone with a sense of chronology, and was about to continue when the boy interrupted again.

"What did you all do? I've heard plenty of _war stories_," he said with an almost flippant smile. "But what of the men behind them? Who were you stationed with there? How were they?"

The Captain stopped drinking and lowered his glass slowly, for that last sentence carried with it a double meaning that he could barely discern on the tip of Tintin's tongue. He could tell the boy had meant to make it sound as such too; his posture had loosened and he was gazing intently in that way he did whenever the two of them switched gears from banter into more personal subjects. The Captain noted wryly that Tintin was always the one to dictate when this occurred.

Two could play at this game.

"They were good."

Tintin's brow raised even higher as he nodded matter-of-factly. The Captain didn't think he'd ever seen him so satisfied with such a lackluster answer, save one as potentially threatening to the exclusivity of their intimacy.

"Were they big?" Tintin asked, waiting conveniently to do so until the Captain was taking another sip, and Louis Jadot Bourgogne Blanc 1931 went everywhere. "Oh dear," Tintin uttered, pulling a kerchief from his pocket and offering it quickly. "Are you alright, Captain?"

"Yes. Yes, I'll be fine. I'm fine."

"I meant, were they tall? Muscular? Shorter like me?"

"I suppose they came in all sizes and shapes, lad."

"Were any of them criminals?" The random and unabashed question offended Haddock a bit, but his unsureness quickly overtook his devotion to his old crew, which was, suffice it to say, a little dusty these days.

"You know, I'm not sure…" he narrowed his eyes as he tried to recall. "I'm sure some of them slipped the net."

"What was your culture like? Was it organized? Just so? Did you sneak off and…" Haddock waited in agony for Tintin to search for the words, "…play cards?"

Haddock finished off his glass, pouring himself another one. The buzz from the first drink was easing him smoothly into this odd terrain, and a burst of bravado pushed him to wink, cheekily responding –

"Oh, we got up to a lot, we did."

"Is that so."

Haddock's heart skipped a beat, for the reporter was now glaring at him.

Or was he? His face had returned to that same expressionless and rather creepy state it had been in earlier. Haddock briefly panicked, scrambling to find something to say that would fix the situation – but before he could another inquiry was fired his way.

"Did they drink a lot?"

Haddock thanked his stars for an easy and unloaded question, though he suspected it was not going to let him off the hook.

"What kind of question is that? Of course they did!"

"From the bottle? Like this?" Tintin picked up the bottle of Chardonnay and abruptly took a swig. Haddock was lost for words as the lad rearranged himself in the large seat, draping a leg over one of the arms.

"Nefarious neonates, what in the blazes are you doing?"

"You know, I'm betting you that I could finish off this entire bottle right now, Captain."

"Bet you couldn't." The captain wanted to kick himself for the third time that afternoon. He had meant to give him a gentle warning, but it came out as a challenge; and Tintin raised an eyebrow, emptying the bottle promptly. He placed it decidedly back on the desk and a shallow, crisp burp escaped him, which he did not apologize for.

"What's got into you, love?" Haddock asked gently, and Tintin only offered a noncommittal shrug before resuming his questioning.

"Did-_hic_!" The ginger brought a fist to his lips and closed his eyes in an attempt to suppress the oncoming outburst. Haddock waited patiently until he succeeded. "It must have been great fun," he said, abandoning whatever question he was going to ask.

"That it was."

"Tell me more," Tintin returned to a more conventional position, tucking his foot beneath himself and resting his chin in his hand. "Did you have any close friends there?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

"Yes, a few."

"How close were they?" Tintin chewed a bit on the inside of his mouth as his eyes darted between Haddock's.

The Captain sighed. "You know I can't lie to you, Tintin."

"I'm not expecting you to," the boy chided.

"Well, some of them were _pre-tty_ close at one point or another, I'll tell you that." Haddock laughed heartily without meaning to.

"Well, well," Tintin said.

The Captain couldn't believe it. If they were having a discussion about what he was positive they both were, Tintin was now behaving as if they were simply two friends gossiping about past encounters. Whether the lad was just bottling it all up or was genuinely so secure in himself he couldn't be arsed to start trouble, Haddock wasn't sure.

He decided to push the envelope.

"The funny thing about the Navy," he said, "is that even though you're out on the ocean, even when you're stationed during peacetime and there isn't a thing to do and no place to go, every man on that ship will still have muscles like a wild panther."

Tintin's eyes widened a bit.

"Give or take a few of the crew," Haddock added.

"Impressive!"

"Did get dastardly cold in there in the winter, though. Some of the warmest parts of the ship were in the lower levels – dirty, fithly places – you'd get grease all over just being down there for ten minutes."

"That's positively _barbaric_," Tintin breathed, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

"Awfully hard to see down there, too. As it won't to get when you've got eight, ten, thirteen men down in a tiny room smoking."

"You smoked while…you…" Tintin's cheeks were flushing and the wine was obviously starting to nip at the heels of his brain function. "…_played cards_?"

"Takes some skill not to burn anyone moving about so much, laddie." The euphemism was falling apart. They were no longer beating around the bush. They were ripping the bush apart piece by piece.

"It sounds like it," Tintin responded in a tone of overstated wonderment that would have been insulting if it weren't so sultry. The Captain watched him closely as the boy stood up and stretched, wandering around to the side of the desk before removing something from behind his ear.

"Have you got a light?" he asked. The Captain maladroitly fetched a book of matches from the drawer and ogled the reporter in shock as Tintin leaned over, placing his elbows on the desk and balancing over the half-finished model as he struck one of the matches and tended to his cigarette.

"S…wh…since when did you _smoke_?" Haddock nearly shrieked, and then it struck him. Through the fog in his mind it occurred to him that Tintin may have already done his research –no, _of_ _course he had_! He already knew all about Diderot, and the goddamned Fourdre! He probably knew the names of every single man stationed on both ships! He probably-

"I had a word on the telephone with your old friend Jules." Tintin remained leaned over on the desk, forcing the smoke through his lips self-assuredly. It dissipated into the sliver of sunset on the wall and Haddock recognized the scent immediately.

It was a Belga.

Jules had been the smallest man in Haddock's crew on the Diderot. He was, perhaps, the youngest as well, though back in those days they were all roughly the same measure of young. Haddock himself was smaller, more svelte –_ beardless,_ when he was having him, that boy with strawberry blond hair and a tattoo of a swallow on his arm with a banner beneath reading "Madeline." Jules was from Belgium, and so naturally he smoked Belgas. Tintin reminded Haddock of him in many ways - in fact, before engaging in a relationship with the reporter, Haddock had sent the retired sailor a frenzied letter (in addition to a request that he in good faith return the military decorations Archibald had lost over various poker games with him through the years) asking him whether or not he had ever, perchance, had a son.

He never got his decorations back, but Jules assured him there was no relation.

Tintin had taken another drag while Haddock was reminiscing and was now leisurely allowing the smoke to pour out of his mouth, French inhaling it through his nostrils. His eyes were firmly fixed on the Captain's, and Haddock had to force himself to take a deep breath just so he wouldn't lose it right then and there.

"He's told me quite a lot," the boy said, and the statement carried no spite. "I was very thorough with my interview."

Haddock wondered just how invasive Tintin had been. It was usually difficult to imagine the reporter being forceful in any respect, save for defending himself and demanding information pertinent to his story; but it was becoming easier to visualize in Haddock's mind as the former now had half a bottle of wine in him and was smoking right before his very eyes all within the span of twenty minutes.

"He had some interesting advice to share."

An odd thought struck the Captain, and he asked offhandedly, "You haven't been nicking my pipe tobacco, have you?" before exclaiming, "Thundering typhoons!" when Tintin suddenly slipped onto his lap. The cigarette had become rather short and the reporter switched to holding it with his index finger and thumb in what Haddock thought to be a rather masculine manner, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow as he finished it in a way that made him look altogether rugged and handsome, like some sort of cowboy. The contrast startled the Captain to his very core, confounded him, but most of all…

…he was enjoying it. Immensely.

And from the look the boy just shot him he could tell Tintin felt it on his lap.

The reporter leaned back, dropping the butt carelessly into Haddock's empty glass. This was different. This was so much different than the Tintin Haddock knew, the one who would always avoid making the first move, always reluctantly succumb to the Captain's advances, eventually beg to be taken. Even his eyes seemed to say, _we're done messing around. I'm running the show today._

Tintin's fingers wound into Haddock's hair affectionately. "You will never tire of me," he said after a moment of thought, and Haddock nodded a little in obedience without realizing it.

"There will always be new adventures," he said, lifting his own sweater and undershirt off in one graceful movement. "And if you ever want a foul-mouthed, filthy, completely despicable little sailor looking for a little _rough trade_…"

"Oh my lord," Haddock huffed.

"…I can certainly_ fuck_like one."

"_Ohhh_, my lord." Haddock's mouth continued to run indiscriminately as Tintin relieved him of his shirt as well and reached into his own pocket, producing a bottle of oil.

"I need for you to fuck me over this desk, right now," Tintin said urgently, thrusting the bottle to Haddock's chest with no further ceremony.

"Wha-I? You mean _me_?"

"I don't see anybody else here," Tintin said. Seeing him this impatient was yet another first to add to the extensive list of firsts Haddock was accruing today. He clutched the bottle as Tintin undid the belt to his plus-fours furiously, and as he slid out of the Captain's lap Haddock nearly dropped the bottle in shock.

"Wh…is that real? Is that real?" Haddock was shouting now, and he could care less if Nestor heard him across the manor. "When did you get that?"

On Tintin's right bicep, in the very place where Jules' tattoo had been, was a beautifully rendered fish – a haddock in fact, which appeared damn near identical to that of the Captain's family's crest - the banner below of which read "Archibald."

"Last week. There's a very good artist on the far side of town who's never heard of me – I told him it was the name of my dead brother, and he was a fisherman!" Tintin afforded himself a childish laugh at the macabre humor of his lie.

For the first time that day, or probably ever, _Haddock_ wanted to kick _Tintin_.

He was flattered, almost to the point of death. He was enraged that Tintin had marred his beautiful skin for _his_ benefit, forever. He was afraid, so afraid at the prospect of someone dropping Tintin's name to the artist. He was straining to visualize Tintin _even sitting_ through the process when the boy lowered his chin and looked up at the Captain defiantly as if he could read his thoughts.

"It was my decision," he said sternly.

"Of course, lad," Haddock said, suddenly sheepish.

"I do care for you very much, you know."

"I…" Peering again, concerned, at the image on Tintin's arm, Haddock couldn't let that pass as anything less than understatement of the century. "I…care for you very much too, lad."

"Good. Now if you could get on with fucking me over this desk, and fucking me hard," Tintin said lightly, and Haddock's length, which had been twitching violently with every instance of the reporter saying the word "fuck," completely assumed control of him. He hurriedly fumbled to open the bottle, accidentally dousing his entire hand with oil.

Tintin turned around, supporting himself on the edge of the desk as the Captain's fingers slipped inside the younger man one by one. "Christ, boy…you're going to…be the end of me…" he annunciated through whining breaths.

For a moment the reporter was himself again, speaking steadily as if someone hadn't just forced their digits into his behind. "I beg to differ, if anything I'd say your quality of living has improved greatly since I came around."

"That it has," Haddock growled, and Tintin's body nearly collapsed as he wriggled his fingers into just the right place. "That. It. Has."

By the time the Captain had sufficiently prepared them both it occurred to him that they might need more room on the desk but he was too distracted with watching his cock as he guided it into the boy's entrance.

"Thundering typhoons," he uttered as he watched Tintin turn his head to the side, mouth dropping open and his eyes falling shut.

"Yessssssss," Tintin hissed, and then the Captain began to move and he was suddenly on a ship.

Archibald Haddock never did have a very vivid imagination. He couldn't even imagine Tintin getting a tattoo, let alone imagine him smoking a cigarette when he had been doing it inches from his face minutes ago; and yet he could just barely feel beneath the stationary Moulinsart estate the familiar cradle of the sea's arms. Tintin suddenly became the most devilishly beautiful cabin boy of all, better looking than any mate had been on the Diderot, or the Fourdre, or any ship that has probably ever sailed, _ever_ – and best of all, he was Haddock's.

The Captain's name was on him now, after all.

Not _his_ fault the lad was so devoted to his ravishing good looks and dockside charm that he went and got himself inked up. He could imagine shaking hands with all of his mates. "He's got the best catch in the world," they'd say. He was even able to picture Jules perhaps walking in on them at it in the brig, sending a congratulatory salute the Captain's way before making himself scarce.

What Haddock did not notice was as he lost himself in his fantasy his thrusting had gotten quite out of control, and had he been able to see Tintin's expression he would have in all likelihood lost his bearings at the very start. The boy's face was plastered into a Cheshire grin and he, too, appeared to be lost in some fantasy as he howled – literally was _roaring_ in such an animalistic fashion that Haddock could already feel the muscles in his groin tense in preparation.

This did not sound like Tintin.

Tintin, who gripped the edges of the desk as he was pressed into it, his shouts echoing in the spacious study; until his better nature awakened and he quickly realized he should probably start getting the Captain's things out of the way before he arrived.

He only had time to move one or two pieces before the need to touch himself became too overwhelming, and he managed to slip his hand beneath the drawers and release himself with an abrupt cry as the Captain forced him further and further into the desk, riding out his orgasm with a guttural groan until the thing went tumbling over completely, craft wood scattering everywhere with a great crash.

"Tintin? Tintin! Are you- are you okay-"

The Captain at once felt a bit lightheaded, and incredibly sleepy; and he remembered seeing Tintin's lithe, naked form righting the desk and collecting the pieces; cleaning up the sticky mess with the kerchief, placing a kiss on his forehead and then a blanket being brought up before the sun was peeking through the window onto his bookshelves, opposite the end it had slipped out of the room…how many hours ago?

It was morningtime. And Haddock was, for the first time in a long while, waking up in his chair with a spinning head to a pile of unidentifiable debris.

He tensed for a moment, daring to wonder if he had simply dreamt the previous few years, until the door to the study creaked open and Tintin entered, carrying breakfast and wearing a sly, smitten smile.


End file.
